A Baby Ruined My Body
They warned me before I got here.
“Babies ruin bodies.”
“Enjoy this now – you’ll never see it again after kids!”
“You’ll never be the same.”
I guess they were right. I am ruined. I don’t see it. I’m not the same.
Marry the Man Who Stays
Don’t look for a man to “spiritually lead” you; you need a man spiritually led by God, whose faithfulness is the foundation of every true love. The man led by God is led by God’s love. God’s love is unfailing. God’s love is steadfast. God’s love stays.
Why You Should Learn to Fight Well
As much as I liked the fight, I hated watching Josh walk away. I hated knowing I may have driven him away with my yelling and compelling (read: ruthless) argumentation. But now we’ve only been married two years and have seen incredible improvement in how we fight. Some of this is simply due to emotional and spiritual maturity, but it’s also by implementing the following five strategies.
Five Habits for a Productive Day
Since stress is a sense of “losing control”, the best way to reduce it is to bring life under control. Good habits are a means of bringing life under control without even thinking about it. However, planning must also bear a level of flexibility in order to avoid slipping into OCD. As with everything in life, a balance must be struck.
5 Ways Having a Baby Changed My Marriage
People say the first year of marriage is the hardest. I think the first year a child arrives is the hardest! Marriage was pretty simple when we were both working, got a reasonable amount of sleep each night, and weren’t captive to the feeding schedule of a tiny human. Our little girl is the light of our lives, totally worth those first six weeks (the primary period of “what-on-earth-is-happening”), but her arrival required some major adjustments to our relationship. Our marriage changed when Adeline was born; it changed in five distinct ways.
Should Christians Drink Alcohol?
The gospel gives us the incredible privilege of joining God’s redemptive purpose. We are the living temples of God on this earth because of what Jesus accomplished. A temple of God should be filled with the Spirit of God – and nothing else.
Five Ways My Career Prepared Me to Stay at Home
Staying home after working an 8-5 for five, seven, or ten years is a transition. But contrary to theory, full-time work and full-time motherhood have much more in common than meets the eye. In fact, my seven years working a desk gave me an edge as I moved to full-time home management.
Why I Ask My Husband to Help at Home
I recently finished the book Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time by Brigid Shulte and was so challenged by the research Brigid shared. The book questioned many of the norms of work and home – particularly the concepts of the “ideal worker” and the “ideal mother”. An ideal worker is the person who stays late, does more, answers emails after hours, and is invested in her job at the expense of all other priorities. The ideal mother is the woman many of us attempt to be because we think we should – spinning plates of work, home, parenthood and marriage all at once, by ourselves. Quite often, the ideal worker and ideal mother are combined into one completely overwhelming individual we measure ourselves against every day.
Dear Girl, It’s Just a Date
These days we move strategically, chess pieces navigating the game. We have to know if he’s ready to spiritually lead and financially take on a family. We have to know where it’s headed because otherwise, it’s a waste of time – right? Dating is supposed to lead to marriage – right?
Not always.
How I Left Legalism Without Leaving God
I'm a product of "purity culture". I wore the ring, read the books, and didn't date in high school. I could tell you anything you wanted to know about courtship. I was immersed in the culture through my teen years, as a student and a leader within the movement. I...
How to Reset a Bad Day
This week on Uniquely Woman, Lisa and I discuss ways to step back and breathe, get perspective, and take charge of your emotions. We’ll discuss how to look up and ahead, cultivate gratitude, and pour out your heart to God – not vent to the nearest listening ear. Below are the show notes!
How To Create a Daily Routine {Tutorial}
I’ve often thought the negative stereotype of moms as stressed out, overwhelmed, and run ragged with responsibility was a little unfair. It’s true that motherhood is exhausting at times, and the more kids you have the harder it is (as the oldest of six, I know what it looks like). But I don’t believe stress is God’s intention for our lives. I believe that even in motherhood, we can manage our time in a way that allows us to enjoy our children, enjoy our hobbies, and fully live the lives God has given us.
So with thought, prayer, trial and error, I developed my daily routine.
5 Myths Single Women Believe About Motherhood
Too many single women get discouraged about motherhood before they even arrive there. Motherhood does not destroy your identity, nor does it take away from the life you lived as a single. Motherhood enriches your days, filling them with as many smiles and giggles as new tasks and responsibilities.
The Truth About the Confident Girl
We can stop living in fear of what others think of us. We can stop measuring others against the yardstick of our own preference and personality. And when we do, we will all be free.
We will all be living in God’s design.
We will all be confident girls.
My Daughter Is Not My World
My daughter is not my world, and I’m a better mom because of it.
Not better than other moms who do things differently; better than the mom I would be if I did things differently – if my world revolved around her.
I love her. She is a light to my life: her smiles, her giggles, and those milky blue eyes that search my face from behind her Tommee Tippee. The little fingers that grip my pinky – I love them. I love her eagerness, her excitement, and her energy.
Christianity Offends Me
Christianity will always offend. But we should more concerned with offending the gospel than with offending the world. Jesus was offensive even as He poured out love and kindness. He was offensive because He claimed to be the Way.
“Just a Mom” Is More Than Enough
We don’t qualify our jobs by demeaning them. We don’t say, “I’m just an engineer” or “I’m just a recruiter” or “I’m just a hairstylist”. We’re taught to take healthy pride in our skills and accomplishments, to embrace and celebrate what we offer to our communities. Yet so often this world is an unsafe place for the family, where the longest hours are put in and the most patience is required, all for the compensation of a sleepy smile, little steps, and first words. So we cloak our motherhood with disclaimers and admit we are “just moms”.
Why My Daughter’s Right to Life Trumps My Right to Choose
Scandal.
That’s what it is, not just what it’s called.
And they knew it would be, when they wrote that episode: the one where a child’s life is taken to boost viewer ratings or cause a ruckus across the internet for a few days. They knew that’s how it would go when they wrote an abortion scene. #Istandwithplannedparenthood, right? It’s just a show, right?
But it’s not.
Why You Don’t Have to Feel Like a Failure
They say not to cry over spilled milk. Whoever said that must not have been breastfeeding. For my unmarried and childless readers, this experience may not be relatable at the moment. So you'll have to take my word for it when I say breastfeeding is harder than it...
Five Reasons to Establish a Morning Routine
As someone who finds joy in being busy, I always have multiple outer and inner expectations to meet. But the busier my schedule, the more likely I am to forget something, run late, or overwhelm myself to the point of anxiety. Marriage revealed to me just how often I lived in a stressed-out, anxious state – despite the habits I had already formed. So I began to devote more time to developing a real schedule and establishing a morning routine.
Stretch Marks Are the New Black
There was a time, not so long ago, I had to decide which of ten different blazers I would wear for the day. I had concerns like, “Which of these complements my brown stilettos?” and “Will this matching suit set make me look too much like a lawyer?” But these days getting dressed is much simpler. I only put on three things: a bra that doesn’t smell like milk, enough clothes to prevent the mailman from calling the police, and lipstick bright enough to qualify me for the red light district.
Why You Should Embrace the Woman Who “Has It All Together”
We don’t need to apologize for our “perfect lives” because there is no such thing. We should feel safe to celebrate our successes: our clean floors, our happy marriages, our birth stories, our weight loss, our non-scale victories. These are just as authentic as the rawness of struggle and difficulty. Both are genuine. All are real.
Natural Birth for the Pain-Intolerant
It started simply as curiosity, but as time went on, I found more and more information touting the benefits of an unmedicated birth: quicker recovery, greater comfort, more presence of mind, awake baby, and many more. This is all great, I thought. But I still have to do it MYSELF.
How Fantasizing About Guys is Keeping You Single
It is one thing to pray for your future husband, to have dreams, and indulge in a once-in-a-while glance at the future. It’s another to allow our hearts and minds to be consumed with love, romance, and the idea of a relationship that does not yet exist. The simple truth is that where your mind is focused is where your heart will go. Satan uses “good” things to distract us from what is best. What is best is to cultivate a mind that is dedicated to Christ, and therefore actions that reflect His power.